Body found in remote part of Columbia River identified as missing man
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kayakers found a body May 24 in a remote stretch of the Columbia River.
- Fingerprint analysis confirmed the man's identity after an autopsy.
- Autopsy showed no obvious signs of homicide; cause of death remains unknown.
A 40-year-old homeless man was possibly looking for work at orchards in the Burbank area when he disappeared in late March, said the Benton County Sheriff’s Office.
Kayakers discovered Gregory L Vanhooser’s body on May 24 in the Columbia River next to the railroad fill that creates Mound Pond, the sheriff’s office said in a news release Thursday morning.
The pond is one of five created when the railroad tracks were built along the shoreline. The remote stretch of the Columbia River is in Wallula Gap and north of the Oregon border.
Since the discovery, Benton County detectives and the coroner’s office have been trying to determine who he was. They took a DNA sample and X-rays of his teeth, but it was his fingerprints that led to identifying him, Lt. Mike Clark said.
They learned that Vanhooser had spent time at the Union Gospel Mission in Pasco but hadn’t been seen since March. He still has relatives in Missouri, where he’d lived much of his life before coming to the Tri-Cities.
It’s not clear what brought him to the Tri-Cities.
It also remains unclear how or when Vanhooser ended up in the river or how he died. The Benton County Sheriff’s Office said the initial autopsy results didn’t find any obvious signs of homicide.
More tests are being done and until those results are back the cause of death remains undetermined.
This story was originally published June 5, 2025 at 12:24 PM.